Can you learn a language at 17?

A new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that children remain skilled at learning the grammar of a new language up to the age of 17 or 18, the time at which many students graduate high school.
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Is 17 too late to learn a language?

They concluded that the ability to learn a new language, at least grammatically, is strongest until the age of 18 after which there is a precipitous decline. To become completely fluent, however, learning should start before the age of 10.
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How long does it take an 18 year old to learn a new language?

FSI research indicates that it takes 480 hours to reach basic fluency in group 1 languages, and 720 hours for group 2-4 languages. If we are able to put in 10 hours a day to learn a language, then basic fluency in the easy languages should take 48 days, and for difficult languages 72 days.
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Can you learn a language after 16?

My empirical conclusion is that you can learn a language at any age. You may not reach the level of a native speaker but you'll be able to communicate efficiently and you'll derive great pleasure from this additional skill.
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What age is it easiest to learn a language?

the "best age" to learn a new language, according to science

However, according to an earlier study, the window of time when language learning comes naturally may begin to close as early as 5-7 years of age.
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Can You Learn a Language In 7 Days?



What is the hardest language to learn?

1. Mandarin Chinese. Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons.
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How many languages can you be fluent in?

An average person can speak two to four languages in a lifetime. However, human brains work differently, and an average person's brain can handle a maximum of four languages. It takes one year to learn the basics of a language for an average person.
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What's the easiest language?

15 of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers - ranked
  • Frisian. Frisian is thought to be one of the languages most closely related to English, and therefore also the easiest for English-speakers to pick up. ...
  • Dutch. ...
  • Norwegian. ...
  • Spanish. ...
  • Portuguese. ...
  • Italian. ...
  • French. ...
  • Swedish.
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At what age do you stop learning?

This is key as we tend to stop learning as we get older. Research suggests that by age 25 our brains tend to get "lazy." It's not that our gray cells can no longer learn new things, but rather we rely on a set number of neuro pathways to do our thinking. In other words, we get stuck in a brain rut.
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Is 25 too late to learn a language?

Many people believe that you lose the ability to learn new languages as you get older. Language experts, however, will tell you that you're never too old to learn a new language. As you get older, it can be more difficult to learn a new language, though. Children and adults learn new languages in different ways.
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Is it possible to learn 3 languages at once?

yes. It is possible especially for young learners provided that they are exposed to the 3 languages in conducive environment.
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Is Spanish easy to learn?

No matter what your mother tongue is, Spanish is generally one of the easiest languages to learn, as it shares some unexpected similarities with many languages. Of course, Spanish still has challenges that may be different for speakers of different languages.
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Can you learn 2 languages at once?

Answer: Thankfully, your brain can definitely handle learning two (or more!) languages at once! (Two down, 6,998 to go.) But there are also some ways you can make this linguistic task easier on yourself.
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Can I learn a new language at 15?

Yes, learning a language when a child is easier, but there's no cutoff point. Dr. Richard Shuster, a clinical psychologist and the host of "The Daily Helping Podcast" notes that children (up to about the age of 10) have a natural ability to pick up multiple languages, in part because of their brain's neuroplasticity.
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Can you become fluent at any age?

You can become a perfectly fluent speaker of a foreign language at any age, and small imperfections of grammar or accent often just add to the charm. Learn a new language.
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Does duolingo really work?

Last year we learned about the progress Duolingo learners make on reading and listening, and our latest study shows that our courses are effective at teaching speaking skills, too: about half of learners in the Duolingo Spanish and French courses achieved A2 speaking proficiency or higher.
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At what age is your brain the sharpest?

What age is your mind the sharpest? The human brain attains peak processing power and memory around age 18. After studying how intelligence changes over time, scientists found that participants in their late teens had the highest performance.
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At what age is it hard to learn?

At what age is it harder to learn? It initially becomes harder to learn around the age of 12 because the chemicals in your brain change during puberty. Around the age of 25, your brain patterns solidify, and they will become harder to change.
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Can you lose the ability to learn?

Scientists Know We Lose Some Learning Abilities With Age

Newport, chair of the Brain & Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y., says studies have strongly shown decline in learning power for humans. "Loss of learning systems show that after puberty you find a decline in ability to learn.
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What language is closest to English?

The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it's only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.
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Is English or Spanish harder to learn?

But back to English vs. Spanish. Social media informalIy tells me there's an overwhelming consensus: English is WAY harder for Spanish-speakers to learn.
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What is the most useful language to learn?

8 Useful Languages to Learn
  • English. You might be surprised that English isn't the most commonly spoken language in the world. ...
  • Chinese. With more than 1 billion native speakers, Chinese dominates Asia and the world as the most frequently spoken language. ...
  • Spanish. ...
  • Arabic. ...
  • French. ...
  • German. ...
  • Portuguese. ...
  • Russian.
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Can you forget language?

Studies on international adoptees have found that even nine-year-olds can almost completely forget their first language when they are removed from their country of birth. But in adults, the first language is unlikely to disappear entirely except in extreme circumstances.
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What is the most intelligent language?

English is by far the most powerful language. It is the dominant language of three G7 nations (USA, UK and Canada), and British legacy has given it a global footprint. It is the world's lingua franca. Mandarin, which ranks second, is only half as potent.
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Do bilinguals think in two languages?

Bilingual people can think in either their native or second language. Though, they cannot think with both at the same time. They normally switch between them depending on which one they are using.
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